Magical Genes
by A.M. Winters
Summary: Strange sort of Mary-Sue. Not your typical teacher. Interesting lesson in genetics.


Author: Abbie Winters  
  
Title: Magical Genes  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Summary: When Draco comes home for summer after his sixth year he finds the tutors his father hired to test his for an try to teach him wandless magic. Basically though, this is his meeting with his teacher (yes I've Mary-Sue'd myself) and his first lesson in wandless magic, which turns out to involve a great deal of the witch/wizard's genome. I don't think my character's going to have any romance, so don't sweat that, I just wanted to set forth an explanation for some things that JK hasn't covered yet. There may be spoilers for all books in later chapters, but there's nothing specific for any of the books in this chapter.  
  
The parlor that she'd been seated in was quite comfortable. There were antique couches placed strategically through the room nearby their matching chairs, and carefully coordinated with the colors in the expensive Persian rug. Abigail remained unimpressed. This was her third student, and the oldest one that she'd ever accepted. Right leg crossed over left she bounced her booted foot in tune with some nameless beat.  
  
The double doors opposite the door she'd be led in opened and the master of the house strode in. Long blond hair bound behind him cloaks swirled impressively none the less. "Mrs. Hesiod I presume." She hadn't risen, and he took the loveseat opposite her chair. Her five six frame looked less than impressive when dwarfed by the sheer size of the rest of the furniture in the room.  
  
"Miss Hesiod, sir, but yes I am she." She paused only long enough for him to open his mouth. "Mr. Malfoy, I mean no disrespect, but I don't think you understand the way this works. There is no guarantee that I can teach your son." Standing up she started pacing before the mantel. "It's not that I don't appreciate the generous offer, but . oh how can I explain this?" She caught a glimpse of a family of flowers in a pot and Gregory Mendel's experiment brought her to the right way to phrase her message.  
  
"Mr. Malfoy wandless magic isn't something inherent to magical peoples, no matter how pure the bloodline. The idea behind the principle is thus; truly wandless magic, not unlike blue eyes is a recessive trait. It has to be present in the genetics of both parents for the children to inherit the gift. This gift was bestowed on ancient wizards from the Gods, and was originally passed on, not to children, but from master to apprentice. The gift inside of a person that makes innate magic possible was bestowed on Muggles of ancient times as well, but because of a lack of magic for the gift to manifest it presented itself as an evolutionary boost. At the time it was given Muggles hadn't even conquered fire, it's this gift present in descendants and students that is still allowing the great scientific revolutions. The Gods were hoping not to equal the standings, but to make us dependant on each other to force cooperation. If your son can't learn to accept this as fact, or if you and your wife don't have the innate gift as well, I won't be of any use." Her eyes, blue as well, were shining almost as if she had revealed a dirty secret.  
  
"Yes Miss Hesiod, you know, though you seemed to have formed an opinion to the contrary I have read your book. I understand how teaching and passing the gift on works, but I also know that you've taken a muggleborn student on previously and had incredible results, parallel almost to those of Albus Dumbledore's great-grandchild."  
  
"Right, but his parents were molecular biologists; both possessed the muggle equivalent necessary to manifest wandless magic in their child, mixed blood or no."  
  
"Are you not even willing to try?" His eyes were trained on her, unmoving.  
  
"No, no, no, you've mistaken me. I'm more than willing to try and teach your son, I just want you to understand that if within two weeks I don't see some manifestation I will discontinue my lessons. I find that if within two weeks there are no results there generally won't be any."  
  
"Excellent. Have you decided on a cost for your services?"  
  
"There's no charge for my services Mr. Malfoy, as I understand it, you've already chosen a room for me, so long as accommodations are provided lessons remain free."  
  
"How can I argue with such an altruistic young lady?" He smiled and she stood up. There had been no remarking on her completely muggle attire, no questions of her parentage, no raised voices. Obviously someone had exaggerated his tendencies. "My wife is out of the house at the moment, but she'll be home in time for you to meet her at dinner, my son will be arriving home from Hogwarts this evening as well." He withdrew an antiquated pocket watch and glanced at it only briefly. "Actually, it is about time for me to meet him at the train station. There is a house elf waiting outside to take you to your room. Please notify me if something fails to meet your requirements." With a curt nod to her he left her standing in the middle of the room, staring at his retreating back, trying not to insult the social etiquette of the wealthy.  
  
"Mistress Hesiod." The voice was far too high-pitched to be human, and when she looked down she was quite right. A house elf was standing at her feet, not looking directly at her. "Master told mes to stay with you. Master told Missy to obey you Mistress." Looking at the woeful creature beside her she remembered exactly what the house elf had evolved from and a good reserve of her pity vanished, leaving her quite business-like.  
  
"Very well Missy. In the future please don't address me as Mistress. You may call me Abigail, or if you prefer Miss Hesiod, but I do not appreciate being called Mistress, are we clear?" There was frantic nodding. "Excellent. If you would be so kind as to escort me to my quarters." Her things had disappeared as she walked in the door, so it was safe to assume they were waiting for her. The elf scrambled in front of her and Abbie was careful to avoid trodding on it in her hurry to leave the room that had quickly left the impression of a museum on all of its visitors.  
  
The manor was the second largest she'd been procured to teach in, but the elf led her effortlessly to a room in one of the Eastern wings. The oak doors were pushed open to reveal a room decorated in a light lavender color which had been her favorite since childhood. "Wow." It was an awed whisper. No one had gone to so much trouble before. Her trunk, without a scratch was at the foot of the bed, and thanks to a few expansion spells, she knew that it was the only piece of luggage there was going to be.  
  
Sunlight filtered in the window that was draped with a light lavender lace in various directions. The dresser to the far wall was the same light oak as the doors, bed, and desk. With a deep sigh she kicked the right spot on her trunk to make it open, and took the first item from the top. "Missy you take all the books out of here and set them up on the desk, I'll worry about those later, and then dig around the bottom and see if you can't track down my old wand, I'll take care of the clothing and everything else." More as a way to kill time until dinner she began unpacking her trunk by hand, placing each item in a neatly arranged drawer so that she could find it easily. Next came placing the few muggle electronics at various intervals around the room until they could be shielded against magical interference from the wards that were sure to be present on the house. Time passed quite quickly.  
  
Missy stopped what she was doing near to three hours later. "Time Miss Hesiod to change for dinner." Scuttling across the floor to a door on the west wall Missy revealed a nice size bathroom. She dug through a pile of clothes and presented Abbie with one of a few sets of full dress robes she owned.  
  
"I'll pick something out after my shower thanks." There was a nice size pile of folded towels beside a large bathtub. No shower. That wouldn't do. "Missy, can you start my shower please." The elf, it seemed wasn't unused to the question, because a shower of water started falling directly from the ceiling almost immediately. Grabbing a towel and her favorite brand of bath products from among her own things Abbie plodded into the bathroom in no real rush.  
  
Missy was scampering ahead of her almost hysterically. It had taken three full minutes to reach the doors that had two more elves standing on each side and Missy stopped short, pushing her about the knees to make her move forward. For creatures that had to obey, house elves still found ways to be pushy. The doors opened for her and into a rectangular shaped room, with a table of the same geometric shape in the center. There were six chairs placed around it in total, and two of the chairs were already occupied.  
  
"I hope you don't mind, we're having company for dinner tonight." Apparently her looking to the empty seats hadn't been unnoticed after all. Still, she smiled warmly at the lady of the house.  
  
"Not a problem at all. You must be Mrs. Malfoy."  
  
"You may call me Narcissa, dear." She smiled and took the seat that Narcissa gestured to. Abbie flicked her wrist and the chair moved out for her, then back under her as she sat down. It didn't go unnoticed by the parents at the table. It was always better to show your employers that you were capable, particularly in a benign fashion. "Draco and his guests should be here soon." She nodded and crossed her hands politely in her lap.  
  
The older of the women was quite right, it was only a few moments before the doors opened again, this time on Pansy Parkinson, Deidre Parkinson, and behind them, the younger Malfoy. "There you are son. Deidre, Pansy, a pleasure to see you again." Lucius kissed the hand of both his guests and sat down. "Draco, this is your tutor for the summer, Abigail Hesiod." She extended a hand and was mildly amused when he tried to copy his father's actions. Instead of laughing, Abbie allowed herself a small smile and rotated her hand firmly, then with a few shakes, released him. He raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything.  
  
"How was your school year Draco?" All eyes were glued to him, but Abbie noticed the lingering glances of the two other 'guests', all four eyes were directed to her very muggle clothing. The table was doing an admirable job of concealing a dark brown skirt that reached past her knees, but was cut reasonably tight and a pair of boots the same color as her shirt that stopped just underneath her knees. The shirt set that was visible was a cream colored angora sweater set that had been a gift from her last pupil upon her departure. The top half of her hair was pulled back into a braid.  
  
"It was fine mother. The Headmaster was his usual intolerable self, but Professor Snape seems to handle him quite well when the situation calls for it." Food appeared on the table and elves appeared around the table, offering generous portions of all different types of food, domestic and exotic, and the conversation continued easily, Abbie preferring to listen to it and get a basic understanding of the people she would be spending the proceeding three months with.  
  
Dinner passed quickly and the following night was comfortably dull.  
  
Missy discovered rather harshly the next morning that it wasn't smart to wake her new 'mistress' before six thirty in the morning. Actually, her discovery was more being pushed off the bed onto her rear than anything else. By seven though, the relentless elf had her stumbling from the bed. The pair of navy blue checkered flannel pajama bottoms she was wearing was at least a size too big, and the t-shirt she was wearing was sleeveless. "Miss Hesiod dress for breakfast!"  
  
"No. I'm sorry, but no. I dress for lunch and dinner, not breakfast." A yawn slipped past her lips. "Expecially not before nine in the morning on a Saturday." She slipped a very baggy navy sweater over the t-shirt and pulled her hair back into a ponytail before pushing her feet into fuzzy white slippers and following Missy back to the dining room for breakfast.  
  
As the doors opened to show the family already in place, impeccably dressed and waiting for her Abbie was sincerely grateful that this wasn't her first tutoring position. Living with extremely wealthy (and a few working class) citizens of so many countries over the past few years had left her fairly comfortable in most situations. Most apparently included those where she was dressed in PJ's in front of a woman who looked to be wearing a dress robe to breakfast. Narcissa sat with her back ramrod straight, somehow managing to look comfortable. Stifling another yawn she looked up.  
  
"You'll have to excuse my dress, I wasn't aware it was so blessedly important to be attend breakfast this early . on a Saturday morning." Trying her best to sit up straight she waited until all of breakfast appeared before taking a piece of toast and a cup of coffee. Black.  
  
"When is Draco to start his lessons?" Swallowing her mouthful of coffee and resisting the urge to moan at whatever blend it was she turned her attention to Draco instead of his mother to answer the question.  
  
"You start today in just a few hours. I run lessons six days a week. Monday to Friday we'll meet in the library from eight in the morning to three in the afternoon, Saturdays we meet there from ten in the morning until one in the afternoon, and Sundays are my days off." She noticed that the elves were busy attending to the family's plate so she gestured to a plate on the other end of the table and caught the dry piece of toast that came flying back at her. "I'm going to get dressed and set everything up." Pushing her chair out Abbie walked back out of the room after less than five minutes, considering the value of putting an elf-repelling charm on her doors before she went to sleep at night.  
  
When she got back to that room and saw the piles of books waiting on her desk she cancelled that thought and after a quick shower and drying charm, levitated them behind herself and Missy to the library on the third floor. It was inordinately large, with hardwood floors, and three different levels of shelves, all filled with books. There were two square tables and a few different kinds of chairs placed on a rug in the middle of the room. It took all of the two hours remaining before the start of her lesson to get everything set out.  
  
Looking for the entire world as if he owned the entire universe Draco Malfoy walked into the library at precisely ten o'clock. "You made it." She nodded in approval; students that were late didn't usually like the consequences.  
  
"Father didn't make it precisely clear what you were supposed to teach me." He sat in a chair with extra cushion next to the pile of books on the table.  
  
"Wandless magic." His eyes widened as he looked back up at her.  
  
"Wandless magic?" He stood back up. "This is a joke, right? You can't have even graduated yet."  
  
"Graduated what?"  
  
"School! 'Graduated what?' what's wrong with father?"  
  
"Woah right there Mr. Smarty, I was never formally educated, but I've been tutored in this since I was three. I took the OWL's and NEWT's directly at a council testing center, and am fully qualified for this position. I've been teaching this same topic since I was tested for qualification at age fourteen. If you want to waste my time, I don't have to be here, Minerva McGonagall requested that I tutor her grand daughter this summer. If you'd rather, I'll have no problem packing up and accepting. There's only two other teachers of this subject available in the world, and the only one only has one year of experience. My four may be less than Master Reinhardt's sixty, but I don't HAVE to he here." Looking slightly chagrined he sat back down. "Excellent." She motioned slightly and a book floated into his hands. "You'll read this tonight. For today you just need the basics.  
  
"True wandless magical abilities have nothing to do with occasional bouts of magic to save the magic users life. Real wandless witches and wizards can cast anytime, anywhere, with very little extra concentration once they understand the concept of the energy they're manipulating. Wandless magic requires no incantation, and the only limit, is the limit of your imagination.  
  
"The first instance of wandless magic came not from Merlyn as most people think, but from a creature many generations before him. The first real witches and wizards were beings made in the image of the Norse Gods and their servants the Valkyries, the first complete pantheon. It was in Norway, not Africa, contrary to popular muggle anthropologists belief that the first civilizations, however primitive, developed and it was their sheer belief that gave rise to the Gods. Even muggles are capable of that sort of magic.  
  
"These servants of the Gods were given superior motor skills and mental capacity and told to protect the burgeoning muggle race. Eventually it became clear the simply enhanced mental capacity wasn't going to work. These protectors were grouped with two or three others and integrated into a then nomadic tribe of muggles. The lead of each group of protectors were given very special abilities, much like what is today recognized, even by muggles as pyro, psycho, and telekinesis.  
  
"Time passed and as happens everywhere, the protectors got lonely, and some intermarried with the far less intelligent, but no less willing muggles. This gave the first big evolutionary jump to the muggle race. The children of these unions were of markedly higher intelligence, stood straighter, and possessed some of the powers of their magic parents.  
  
"The nomadic lifestyle didn't last forever, and tribes started joining and settling down. There were some protectors that met and married, resulting in children of strictly magic blood, with parents both of magic, and seeing the advantages of having powerful children to keep up the protection of the peoples the protectors decided to keep children within themselves, and from then on, despite the inter-family marriages that occurred quite often, the species flourished."  
  
"You're telling me that my ancestors inbred with each other?"  
  
"Of course they did. Even the muggles can accept that. Haven't you heard of the biblical concept of Adam and Eve?" He shook his head and sat up a bit straighter. Abbie was so relieved to have his attention that she continued eagerly. "The belief is that all humans descended from just one couple. In essence they believe they're all brothers and sisters."  
  
"Isn't incest illegal in muggle society?"  
  
"Yes, it is. Draco, did you know that aside from the stupidity of considering magic people to be more worthy of life, there are real physiological and mental differences in muggles and magical people?" She sat down across the table from him. "Because muggles advance technologically so much faster than us, they also age and die faster than us. It's the price paid for coming so far in such a relatively short amount of time. The people in the muggle world that live to see their hundredth year usually can find strains of magical genes somewhere in their ancestors. Magical genes are much more resistant to degradation and disease. Also, because of so much marriage between us we share most of the same properties, but while magical people use somewhere between fifty and seventy-percent of our brains, muggle use only ten. This doesn't make us smarter, it's just shows that magic is possible even in muggles; it just takes that ancient gift, the genetics from someone in their family to activate those portions of the brain while still in the womb. Children that are stillborn are the result of one parent having a trace of magic somewhere quite far back in the family. Because the amount of magical DNA is so small the development of the rest of the body is hindered while the cells try to replicate enough to keep the major portions of the brain active. In almost all cases it fails and the brain is completely dead, the heart may beat for some time, but the child was never really alive, however, for some reason or other the dividing cells don't realize this. The cells don't degrade, so the rest of the body doesn't die, and the child continues to develop to term."  
  
(TBC if anyone finds this interesting . or plausible.) 


End file.
